Tag Archives: 1980’s

wipers – over the edge (1983)

the landscape of late 20th century american rock music is littered with bands underappreciated in their time yet widely influential. from the velvet underground, the 13th floor elevators, big star to mission of burma, the replacements, esg, galaxie 500…the list is endless (though perhaps isn’t if one takes into account the infinity of the universe)

elbow – gentle storm (2017)

godley & creme – cry (1985)

hypnotic, effortlessly lovely tune from the manchester veterans, perennially under-rated. there are few bands doing what they do, making accessible yet somewhat experimental, artfully crafted songs for grown-ups that detail and elevate the ordinary life. but i could be wrong. one can lose critical perspective when wrapped up in wonder. Incidentally,this video is directed by Kevin Godley -formerly of 10CC and more pertinently Godley & Creme, whose 1985 video ‘Cry’ is here recreated by Godley at Elbow singer guy garveys behest.

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The Moomins Theme (1983) – Graeme Miller & Steve Shill

Did I really watch this show as a child? hallucinatory, morbid, melancholy and delightful folk tales for da kidz. I must have been… 6-9 years old? when I was exposed to this strange stop motion animation series inspired by Finnish authors Tove Jansson’s series of Moomins children books, first published in the 1940’s. Continue reading →

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another music genius lost. what the fuck is happenin? any road, as with Mr Bowie there have been countless articles, think pieces, reports and videos posted in response to Prince’s sudden passing on April 21st so I have collected a few of the more outstanding items that offer some insights and analysis on the works of pop’s prolific pansexual polymath.

“When your dreams seem like a prison, your mind seeks to escape, the bars come down, doors lock shut; the other appears in the corner of your eye. Instead of fighting your way out,your body surrenders, the blood stops, your words fail. Something is crossing over from hell, ready to harm, violate, destroy you completely, you just present yourself gift-wrapped in shame and guilt. From a prison to a black box, unable to move but your spirit won’t save you now. Your spirit is now your demon who has trespassed because you were too weak to fight back. This is always the way of nightmares. And this is how you choose to live. “

– Dr. Heinrich Strummel III, Collected Diaries of the Possessed Volume I, Chapter II, 1893. Translated from German to English by M.R. James.

‘I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum.’ – They Live (1988)

The late Roderick George Toombs aka ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper was best known as the hotheaded Canadian-Scots nemesis to the likes of Hulk Hogan and anyone who took his fancy in the gloriously preposterous sporting arena that is
American pro wrestling, helping to establishing the WWF/WWE brand at home and abroad.

in these solitary moments, deep inside the corporal stillness of the midnight hour, listening to a song from decades past that still affects my body and soul with its opulent melancholy, a graceful collision of classical and – circa 1981 – modern electronic sound.

It longs for something beautiful already fading, dying; it is also a grand yearning for its own romantic essence, existing in an era when electronic patterns, rhythms, melodies were no longer the cultural vanguard, already subsumed into the fabric of popular sound.

Now its grand gestures and opulence resonate with even more poignancy or is that just me projecting as I look back with nostalgic reverie perhaps clouded by sentiment? Is it difficult for me to separate my childhood associations with the song from a clear-eyed view of the song as an adult?

I don’t think so. The emotions I clearly felt as a 4-7 year old as the song played on a turntable in my family’s home for the umpteenth time or when the video aired on someones chunky television set were the same emotions I feel now. For better and for worse, I have had that sense of drama and sadness in my being for as long as I can remember or forget.

Why or how I’m not sure, perhaps it’s genetic or maybe the seeds are planted by music and before we know it or gain awareness through maturity, it is too late to go back and this secret language bypasses common sense, residing forever in the soul.

Does ‘Vienna’ lament the fall of Old Europe? Or a love affair set amidst its decline? Signalling a creative peak that went as quickly as it came and is now a legacy of a particular time of striving in music, 34 years ago, ‘Vienna’ still haunts me; its spectral synth heartbeat, impassioned vocals, grandiose piano crescendos echoing through winter courtyards, empty palaces, cracked marble columns and desolate ballrooms forever more.

Fad Gadget – Lady Shave (1981)

I am currently playing this song on Spotify which is somewhat hypocritical of me seeing as I recently shared a post laced with pompous indignation, sourced from Portishead musician Geoff Barrow’s Twitter feed in which he lays bare the cold facts about the bands remuneration from various streaming services including Spotify, iTunes, You Tube. The figures were stunning; the band’s music had been streamed 34 million times and how much in royalties did the band receive? £1700!!!!!

But has that stopped me ransacking Spotify on a free subscription to suit my welfare budget? No, I continue to use it. Such cowardice, blind consumerism and hypocrisy would no doubt be perfect fodder for an intelligent, boundary pushing musical artist to make a tune out of. But seeing as they are thin on the ground these days let us cast our minds back to the late 70’s, early 80’s heyday of post-punk instead and shine a light on one of the lesser known figures of the period in which musicians and non-musicians dared to do whatever the fuck they pleased for the sheer heck of it.

The late Englishman Frank Tovey (d.2002) aka Fad Gadget pushed and played with the boundaries of electronic music, creating challenging avant-garde mutant pop critiquing and dissecting culture and society with dark humour and bold experimentation. Tovey also holds the historical distinction of being the first artist signed by Daniel Miller to Mute records in the late 1970’s. Tovey released several acclaimed commercially ignored albums through them as Fad Gadget and under his own name until his retirement from music in 1993.

Lady Shave was a b-side to the standalone non-album 1981 single Make Room and it sounds utterly strange, sinister, sleazy, sadistic, hypnotic, insinuating and suggestive; a cold knife on exposed flesh; industrial pleasure made concrete. It is amused and sickened at our self-love, self-disgust,fascinated by the mechanics of our manufactured desires.

The former second city of the British Empire was the primary location for Jonathan Glazer’s 2014 film Under The Skin, in which Scarlett Johansson portrays an alien visitor preying upon Glaswegian laddies and through whose eyes the city and it’s denizens- in particular the Glasgow accent and slang – seem as otherwordly as any distant planet twirling away in the cosmos.

For many, Glasgow conjures up images of grit, hardship, fried mars bars, alcoholics and violence in contrast to its more cultured, softspoken Caledonian stepbrother, Edinburgh but that would be to dangerously assume a load of nonsensical stereotypes which I am not doing but in order to make a tortuous connection between the cosmos and reality I felt it was necessary somehow. Suffice to say that Glasgow suggests a concrete reality and a toughness in its people and environment. And so….

The shipyards by the River Clyde were once a proud cornerstone of industry and employment but by the 1980’s were in severe decline. Native sons Simple Minds pulsing anthem celebrates this past and looks forward just as the band themselves were slowly discarding their art rock sheen for a sleeker, more bombastic sound as they moved towards mainstream acceptance.

MTV 80’s Idents

As a child of the 1980’s, the flashy, cinematic and garish music videos endemic of the decade were all-pervasive and along with movies, cartoons and comic books fueled my dream life. In an era when transatlantic travel and even European travel was less common and before the online revolution, pop culture exported from America felt like exotic, strange, intoxicating transmissions from a dream planet far, far away with MTV the prime exporter and exponent; stylish, iconographic images and sounds of glamour, heartbreak, longing unabashed hedonism, escapism, seize the day opportunism, glorified individualism, airbrushed sexuality, overwrought romanticism, good times and most of all, freedom. Freedom to be whoever and whatever you wanna be!

Phil Oakey & Giorgio Moroder – Together in Electric Dreams (1984)

A grand, cheap attractive illusion – to this kid anyway – living underneath grey Dublin skies, concrete playgrounds and a sense of never being allowed to overreach your grasp and the notion of one day travelling to the USA only happened to the ridiculously fortunate and those whom were deemed ‘cool’. Well, at least this was a limited , extremely naïve view of the world, how I saw it and partly imagined it through my dumb childish eyes.

Reckless (1984) Director – James Foley

Of course, these shiny, loud, flashy things that entranced my younger self were very often a cynical cross marketing, synergistic ploy by corporations to sell records, film tickets, concert tickets and appeal to youth culture but leaving aside the machinations, trend chasing and politics behind the image and idol-making which have only accelerated with the inevitable evolution of communication technology, marketing strategies, globalization and the likes blah blah blah…i’m getting away from the point here aren’t I?

John Waite- Change (1982)

So I guess what I’m saying is strip the adult cynicism away, the transience nature of fashion and taste and what’s left? For those daydreaming 80’s kids or at least this kid America and it’s music was a sense of purity, escapism, big show off gestures and acting out, becoming a superhero in your own bedroom and your own world, winning the girl, rising above and proving everyone wrong; exceptionalism and romance wrapped up in hook laden three-minute songs and elaborate, ridiculous film fantasy’s. To be ‘cool’ and respected by friends and enemies…adults? They barely existed in these feverish scenarios. Thinking back, it was really an extreme, early form of narcissistic behaviour but the world only existed through this gauzy visual and aural ephemera, sensory, erotic overload sending my heart and head spinning with notions above reality.

Madonna – Crazy For You (1985)

Is this a mini essay on my youth? A nostalgic wallow in what was and shall never be? Well, in all honesty all of this looking back was triggered by a John Waite song from 1982 called Change that I’ve listened to over and over and which features in the current Anchorman sequel. It was also used way back in 1985 on the soundtrack to a Matthew Modine wrestling flick called Vision Quest or as it was titled on these shores Crazy For You after the hit single Madonna recorded especially for the movie. The songs typical 80’s impatience, its adrelanized catchiness, the mixture of confidence and doubt, optimism and heartache contained within summoned up feelings that felt long-buried.

Some Kind of Wonderful (1987) Director – Howard Deutch

But not only did it provoke an undiluted emotional response, it also made me aware that what was regarded as a decade of questionable cultural merit for so long now in retrospect now feels like a more innocent, sincere, thrillingly irony free period. Or maybe I’m still dreaming, my prozac hasn’t kicked in and I need to wake the fuck up; my scattered, deranged, sentimental musings simply the symptoms of an ageing fool clinging to the past as a crutch to rationalize his current state.